What Child Is This?

Luke 2:45-51
First Sunday after Christmas

I understand that between one and two thousand people a day are reported missing in the United States.  That seems like a lot of people until you think of all the ways a person can go missing.  Sure, some are taken by people with ill intent, but more likely not: people get displaced by natural disasters; children are abducted by a distraught parent; a person with dementia wanders off; a teenager, tired of chaos and abuse at home, run away to what they believe is a better life.  Most are found, I might add; it’s rare that someone goes missing and isn’t eventually found.  My point is simply that people go missing for a number of reasons.  

But today’s missing person seems unique.  One spring day, many years ago, Joseph perhaps turned to Mary and said, "Hey, have you seen Jesus?" That set in motion a days-long frantic search—ending as they usually do with the lost being found.  This missing person story ends happily enough with a teachable moment, but not the one you might expect.  

Luke tells us that Jesus was twelve when this happened.  I’m pretty sure that “twelve” meant something different in Jesus’ day, but I can also imagine that there were some parallels too: twelve was and is a pivotal time of life.  Not quite a child and not quite an adult.  Parents, teachers, neighbors all asking the same kinds of questions: who do you want to be?  Do you want to follow in your dad’s carpentry business or maybe venture out into something else?  Will you take up your mother’s faith, treasuring and pondering the promises of God in your heart; or maybe become an ascetic zealot like your cousin John?  

You might expect a story like this might end with such a twelve-year-old learning a lesson about clear communication and not wandering off; but that’s not where this story goes.  No, this lesson is for the twelve-year-old’s parents.  Jesus goes missing and the apparent lesson is: “You should have known were I’d be; I’m going to be in my Father’s house.”  The lesson seems to be for the adults, to know Jesus well enough to find him doing his Father’s work.  All this, once again, left his mother to “treasure these things in her heart”; which frankly, isn’t a bad idea for the rest of us.  

Some kids know early on, what they want to do with their lives.  People like Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers.  In his end-of-life autobiography, he wrote about his early fascination with computers, saying that, when “I was 13 years old, I already knew what I wanted to do.”  And he did it, and for better or worse, his vision for his own future changed the world.  

But that kind of clarity is rare.  Think back to what you were like when you were that age; did you know what you wanted to do with your life?  Did your outlook on life and opinions of yourself even remotely resemble who you are now?  I’ve met people like that: years ago, when I went to my twenty-year high school reunion, I made it my quest to learn peoples’ befores and afters.  I asked people to describe who they remember being and asked them if they were now the people they expected they’d be.  There was only one guy: he said, “I knew what I wanted to be when I graduated, I knew the steps it would take to get there, and now I’m doing what I thought I’d be doing.”  He was the only one.  For the rest of us, however pivotal those early years were in shaping who we were to become, those kids aren’t the end-product, as it were.  But like I said some kids know early on and Jesus seems to have been one of those kids.  

After the festival, the text tells us, his parents headed for home; they headed down that well-worn road to the Jordan valley.  And because they were traveling with a larger group of friends and family from the same region, they never noticed that Jesus had stayed behind.

Years later, Jesus would tell a story that started, "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves."  He told it that way because he was familiar with that road; another good reason to travel in a larger convoy and perhaps another good reason why his parents got as panicked as they did.  

That day this road was crowded with perhaps thousands of pilgrims heading home after the holidays. They were on their way to the Jordan Valley, or Galilee, or even further perhaps. Friends and family, traveling, talking, singing, eating, laughing.

And then they noticed: "Where is Jesus?"  All of a sudden, the happiness of the journey became the worry of a dangerous road and a frantic search for a young son.  “Where is Jesus?  Was he with us when we left Jerusalem?  You thought he was with me, I thought he was with you.  Maybe he’s still in Jerusalem.  Maybe he wandered off on purpose.”  

When I was very young, maybe five or six, my parents threw a party; but it wasn’t the kind of party a five or six-year-old would find interesting.  It was all adults and there were no games or presents to open and I got bored.  I remember thinking, “I’m going to go for a walk,” and I did.  The adults were all wrapped up in their boring talking, so no one noticed the little kid walk out the front door and down the street.  I don’t remember how I knew it, but I knew not to cross any streets, so eventually I made it all the way around the block and back to my house.  

I remember the strained happiness on my mom’s face when I told her about my adventure: “Oh, all the way around the block, you say?  Heh, heh, good for you.  Maybe next time tell mommy before you go for a walk, okay?”  

Luke doesn’t tell us what Jesus’ intentions were for staying in Jerusalem, but he clearly wasn’t just wandering off.  His place was in the Temple.  Even at twelve, he knew his life had purpose and that purpose began in the house of God.  Of course it did: the presence of God is where our curiosities and spiritual stirrings find calling.  Surprisingly, it is in the presence of God, as we are deepening our relationship with our Maker and Savior, that our other relationships start to make sense.  As we deepen our relationship with God, we first discover who we are in the light of God’s love: what are our truest values; how is God calling us to change; how is God calling us to live out who we are and who God is calling us to be?  From there, all our other relationships seem to fall in line.  But it begins in the Temple, as it were; it begins by seeking the presence of God to shape us into the children of God we are made and meant to be.  

In a couple of days, we will begin a brand-spanking New Year.  Even more than learning to write a “nine” instead of an “eight,” there is hopefulness in a new year.  Sure, it is an arbitrary day that marks the passage of time, but it’s useful.  It’s useful because it reminds us that we can start over.  For some, it’s a new attempt at healthier behaviors; for others, it’s a renewed resolve live out the values of care and compassion that God has put on our hearts; for yet others, it is simply a grateful reminder that, “The old life has gone, behold, a new life has begun.”  

However you enter this New Year, I invite you to follow our Savior’s lead: to be found, should anyone be looking for you, in the presence of God.  Call it a “resolution” if you need to, but seek the presence of God, here in this place and in your daily walk.  Be found in your Father’s House in whatever way you understand it, but be found in your Father’s House.  Whether we are twelve or one hundred and twelve, or anywhere in between, we are children of God.  And our God wants to be in relationship with us, to renew us in our calling, and to shape us into the people we are meant to be.  As we enter this new day and New Year, may we be found in our Father’s presence, seeking to be the children of God we are called to be.